“Without going into the debate about the use and abuse of the JIF yet again, it is still worth noticing that more present-day metrics have entered the market. A fascinating one is propagated by a company aptly called “Altmetric” (www.altmetric.com). Its colorful, doughnut-shaped symbols are increasingly seen on journal and article websites. They graphically depict the “attention and online discussion surrounding your scholarly content” by measuring reception of a scientific article in the (social) media such as news outlets, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, Google, and the like. On the related details page it will show “all of the original shares and mentions for a research output,” the theory being that the wider an article is spread the more likely it will be cited in the scientific closed shop JIF community in the end. So it is basically all about the attention created and the dissemination achieved, and by nature it is instantly available and constantly changing. The Altmetric Score must be seen as complementary to the traditional “bibliometrics” and, of course, it has all their usual drawbacks too, such as the potential for manipulation.”

“The possibility of manipulation of citation metrics is a serious matter, and Clarivate Analytics remains the only bibliometrics provider to monitor, survey, and curate our data to identify anomalies that lead to distorted rankings.(…) Metrics for the titles listed below are not published due to anomalous citation patterns found in the 2017 citation data. These patterns result in a significant distortion of the Journal Impact Factor and rank that does not accurately reflect the journal’s citation performance in the literature. The Journal Impact Factor provides an important and objective measure of a journal’s contribution to scholarly communication. In the interest of fairness and accuracy for all journals, the distortion of the Journal Impact Factor by an excessive concentration of citations gives rise to the need for suppression. JCR staff will monitor these journals going forward and the titles will be included in a future edition of JCR when the anomalous patterns are resolved. Coverage of these journals in Web of Science and other Clarivate Analytics products is not immediately affected by suppression from the JCR. However, the titles may be subject to review to determine if they continue to meet the quality and publication standards necessary for inclusion in Web of Science Core Collection flagship indexes (Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Science Citation Index).”

“We study history to avoid repeating mistakes but also to guide us in our quest to innovate and push the envelope. Of the IF tool, Garfield(1955) said, “The new bibliographic tool, like others that already exist, is just a starting point in literature research. It will help in many ways, but one should not expect it to solve all our problems.” There may never be a one-stop shopping resource that answers every question posed in the medical and scientific spheres, but we can leverage altmetrics and social media and embrace the IF’s strong historical performance to ensure that optimal academic and societal impact is afforded to scholarly work now and for future generations of aesthetic plastic surgeons.”